Research firm Gartner on Monday announced tablet sales numbers for the full 2013 calendar year, finding Android to have grown a whopping 127 percent to wrest the top position from Apple for the first time ever.

According to Gartner's findings, end users bought nearly 121 million tablets running Google's Android operating system, which accounted for 61.9 percent of the market. Apple, on the other hand, reportedly dropped from a 52.8-percent share of the market to 36 percent on 70.4 million sales.

An impressive performance for Android that Gartner claims is thanks to growing popularity in the low-end smaller screen device sector. The firm's numbers, however, raise red flags regarding questionable methodology and reporting.

The most glaring inconsistency is a disconnect between Gartner's 70.4 million iPad sales and Apple's self-reported 74 million unit sales for 2013. From the first quarter -- Apple's second fiscal quarter -- to the fourth, the company reported iPad sales of 19.5 million, 14.6 million, 14.1 million and 26 million, respectively. The total: 74.2 million iPads sold during 2013.

Barring the fact that Apple's sales figures are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Gartner's results are not off by a trivial amount, but a huge 3.8 million units. Thought of in another way, the discrepancy, if applied to No. 3 Microsoft's sales, would almost completely wipe out the Surface maker's performance for 2013.

Further confusing the issue is Gartner's use of the term "sales." Apple is the only major company to report sales to end users, while Android device makers like Samsung note only shipments. Gartner saw Samsung's tablet business grow 336 percent year-over-year, a feat chalked up to expanded product offerings and intense marketing.

"In line with its smartphone approach, Samsung's oversegmentation of its tablet portfolio helped it to offer a wider size and price choice but also helped it to test the market and find niches," Gartner's report reads.

In its vendor breakdown, seen above, Gartner once again includes the "Other" category dominated by so-called "white box," or unbranded devices. Compared to last year's 30.1 million sales, "Other" manufacturers racked up 60.7 million unit sales in 2013. To offer some perspective, the number is larger than the recorded sales for the list's second, third and fourth place OEMs combined.

"In 2013, tablets became a mainstream phenomenon, with a vast choice of Android-based tablets being within the budget of mainstream consumers while still offering adequate specifications," said Gartner research director Roberta Cozza. "As the Android tablet market becomes highly commoditized, in 2014, it will be critical for vendors to focus on device experience and meaningful technology and ecosystem value -- beyond just hardware and cost -- to ensure brand loyalty and improved margins."

I dunno. I could very well be living a very sheltered existence where I am, but, I've only ever seen iPads and Kindles (the original and Paperwhite - not the Fire versions.) I've never seen an Android tablet "in the wild" - i.e., not for sale on a shelf, but actually being used by someone. Same for a Surface - I've seen one for sale in Staples, but have never seen one that has been purchased.

Yeah, it's not right to extrapolate my personal observations to the rest of the market; I just find it odd that I haven't seen anyone using one of the kabillions of Android tablets that're supposed to be running around out there.

Since Android actual sales are not known, how can anybody make that claim? It seems to me reasonable that possibly 40% of those android shipments were still sitting on the shelves waiting to be sold, I'm sure Apple still had iPads left on the shelf that they has shipped. This seems to me that this is just another round of bullshit numbers from the anti-Apple crowd.

I almost never see a tablet that isn't an iPad. I'm guessing a lot of these sales are to developing markets. No one should be surprised. Android spammed the low end smartphone market, and now the same is happening with tablets.

Who cares what an analyst says? They just try to manipulate the market. And besides, Apple is making all of the profits, and that is what companies care about. But we need to remember that this is comparing Apple SALES against Android SHIPPED numbers. There are many many more Andorids which get shipped but never sold. It is bad for the environment but nobody is talking about that it seems. And besides, Ferrari sells a lot less cars than the cheap brands like Volkswagen that doesn't even offer Apple in the car, so its OK that Apple sells a lot less phones because the companies that sell the best never sell the most and Apple is always the best. And Steve Jobs only wanted to get like 1% of the telephone market and they have more than that already so who cares about market share? Nobody except Wall Street cares about market share and those guys don't really care about Apple but just want to make money off of it without doing any real work to make more sales and better products. Apple doesn't need these guys breathing down its neck and telling what to do. Those analysts are pathetic.

What is happening is any product which needs some sort of OS to operate, is using bastardized version of Android on it,.Anyone can download Android hack it up to do what you need pay no licensing fee and load it on your product. They google gets to count it as shipped OS.

if you were some company trying to see your garbage into the market, and you could pay for an OS or get one for free which would you do.

The problem is all these Data companies are counting numbers, but as i pointed out before, what is behind those numbers, where did they come from. The simple fact they have apples actually numbers wrong should tell you something.

I dunno. I could very well be living a very sheltered existence where I am, but, I've only ever seen iPads and Kindles (the original and Paperwhite - not the Fire versions.) I've never seen an Android tablet "in the wild" - i.e., not for sale on a shelf, but actually being used by someone. Same for a Surface - I've seen one for sale in Staples, but have never seen one that has been purchased.

Yeah, it's not right to extrapolate my personal observations to the rest of the market; I just find it odd that I haven't seen anyone using one of the kabillions of Android tablets that're supposed to be running around out there.

"As the Android tablet market becomes highly commoditized, in 2014, it will be critical for vendors to focus on device experience and meaningful technology and ecosystem value — beyond just hardware and cost — to ensure brand loyalty and improved margins."

Companies who sell Android hardware do not worry about margin or brand loyalty by definition, it about dumping as much crap on the market as you can at the lowest possible cost.

Honestly, I no longer give a crap about their reports simply because I don't know where these proud owners of samsung / google garbage are! What part of universe these transactions take place anyways?!!

....the lack of properly optimized apps is one of the reasons "why the experience on Android tablets is so crappy".

I know that more than half of those are sub-200€ devices, just like phones. Devs know it too. Google knows it also.

It's Apple's strategy and it won't change. Because of that, the best and more demanding Apps will always be iOS first or iOS too, unless Apple screws big time during a few couple of years.

What Apple should be worried is that we are starting to see capable jelly bean devices for that price that are perfectly capable or the ocasional flappy bird and Facebook/instagram/yadda yadda and people really love big screens.

So... Can we please stop with useless articles like these, useless posts from the usual suspects (I never saw an Android tablet! how do they do how many sales? Google only wants your data!yadda yadda)?

Get over it. Google is awesome. Android is awesome. Apple is just the best. Most of those sales are all trashy devices, as in every category (phones,tablets,cars,bikes,tvs, fridges, toilets, houses, etc.).

A couple years ago, a co-worker approached me to troubleshoot his "iPad". It would not connect to our WiFi network. Well, in under a second, I realized it was not an iPad, but a bonafide $50 chinese knock-off tablet. Exact same design, except all in plastic, and the "touch" display was more akin to a palm-pilot capacitive display that was horrible to look at, and required serious finger-pressure (not "touch") in order to register any events on the screen.

I spent probably 20 minutes with it (and him) trying to troubleshoot the connection problem. He blamed the WiFi network. At that point, I took out my Macbook... WiFi connected immediately. I took out my iPhone... connected immediately. I took out my iPad... connected immediately.

His demeanor changed after that. After lecturing him about the value of products, I asked why he didn't at least get a Samsung tablet which (arguably) is cheaper than an iPad? His response? It was too expensive, and he was led to believe his $50 piece-of-shit was just as good as an iPad. This guy works on avionics systems for private aircraft. So I was rather dumbfounded by his lack of intelligence in this area.

A couple minutes later, I gave up. The quality of the hardware was so bad, as far as I'm concerned he got a lemon. The WiFi card was probably defective, dunno as the time wasted in figuring out his cheapshit Android tablet ended up costing more in my time. I told him "You get what you pay for" and left it as that.

Even better, he tried contacting the seller of that tablet... in China, and they essentially gave him the phone-version of the middle-finger. He sent the unit back for a refund and never got his money back.

A fool and his money departed.

This is where the bulk of Android "sales" are coming from. I never see anyone at the Samsung Kiosks at Best Buy and Costco buying those things. It's always a ghost-town in that area. It's the $50 knockoff-crap the Chinese factories are peddling.

Damn shame. And it's this market that the analysts think Apple should compete in? Hell no! I'm glad Apple is staying out of that market.

These are raw sales. These don't talk about where, what kind of tablets, for how much, etc.

A vast majority of "Android Tablets" are sold in Asian markets where they are used for pure consumption as a television. They aren't exactly being bought for "tablet use."

What matters is profitability of the tablets as well as number of profitable of customers.

How many of those Android tablets are being sold to people who will pay $3-$6 for multiple games and apps? Music? Movies? That number is what's relevant as that number will determine how many and what developers will create worthwhile apps for the ecosystem. I've seen so many Samsung Galaxy tab giveaways this year it's ridiculous.

I have an iPad purely for the quantity and quality of specific apps. I'd personally be fine getting an Android tablet that's 1/3 the price if I could get the same apps.

This trend of putting so much credit into pure sales number without taking any other market factors into place is just stupid.

The discrepancy to Apple's own published figures is very unusual and calls into question the validity of the Android estimate. That said, it probably is broadly correct that Android tablets have greater market share. But the unit sales for Android are likely coming from the low end. The Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 are arguably the closest to the iPad in terms of quality. Yet (again, taking Gartner's numbers with a grain of salt), they don't appear to be making significant gains.

So if we do a "profit share" comparison, or a "revenue share" then Apple is probably even further ahead with the iPad than the iPhone is in its market.

A statistician, true to their craft, will attempt to better define a category labelled as "Others" when the category is equal to 30% of the total being analyzed. This is particularly true when the smallest identified category is 3% of the total. Other should never, ever be your 2nd largest data category. After all, there may be a really good manufacturer that Gartner has hidden in the Other category.

In another note, I wouldn't be surprised if Samsung were looking at that second chart and trying to figure out a way to become #2 right now. After all, it must be terribly embarrassing to know Other produces more units than Samsung. And, hey, if I were Samsung, I would sure want to know what company was shipping more units than I was. Other than Apple of course.

The word you are looking for is anecdotal. An account based on personal accounts rather than facts or research. Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new information as confirming ones own belief.

For example, this article shows a confirmation bias at AI in their belief that Gartner's research is not objective or scientific. Believing iPads are more popular because thst is all you see people use is anecdotal.

Ya, let the suckers pay for dumb research and other suckers make investment decisions based on these sucking numbers...the truth is the truth and the facts are facts...that's the way the cookies crumbles.

Well, a 5% discrepancy is remarkably small in the world of market data. In terms of time, it's a difference of a couple of weeks of sales.
If this estimate was arrived at independently of Apple's numbers, it actually gives enormous credibility to the rest of the data.
And it certainly doesn't change the big picture.

I dunno. I could very well be living a very sheltered existence where I am, but, I've only ever seen iPads and Kindles (the original and Paperwhite - not the Fire versions.) I've never seen an Android tablet "in the wild" - i.e., not for sale on a shelf, but actually being used by someone. Same for a Surface - I've seen one for sale in Staples, but have never seen one that has been purchased.

. . .

“ . . . never seen an Android tablet in the wild” probably indicating shamed closet users or have been tossed to back of sock-drawers as sleepers.

When I find time to rewrite the laws of Physics, there'll Finally be some changes made round here!

I am not crazy! Three out of five court appointed psychiatrists said so.

People make investment decisions on the future, not on the past. Interesting in that sense is Apple's dramatic slow down in unit sale growth, and Gartner's expectation that hybrid sales will grow when people replace tablets (they mean in effect that people will buy Windows hybrid devices instead of the next iPad). We'll see if this happens or not, and if Apple decides to offer a hybrid device (as we expect).

Really? Is it REALLY confirmation bias? Because I'm into technology, I specifically pay attention to what I see people using around me, everyday. When I see an Android/Microsoft tablet, they actually stand out MORE in my point, because I see them so uncommonly. Today, I was in a University campus, 2 coffee shops, a bank, a bus, in a mall, and 2 people's houses. In that time, I must have noticed 100 people using iPads. I was SPECIFICALLY looking for something different- and not once did I see it. So no, It can't always be confirmation bias. I think the vast majority of people can admit to seeing way more iPads in the wild that anything else. I'm sure these Android tablets are going SOMEWHERE (in a hole, maybe), but for some reason, it's not somewhere that your average citizen actually frequents. There's nothing anecdotal about it.

Does it really matter if one billion Android tablets are sold tomorrow, if barely anyone uses them for anything meaningful? In terms of web usage stats, ads, e-commerce, app-downloads, ecosystem usage, etc- everything is still steeply in the iPad camp. That is pretty meaningful.

I must say being an Apple fan boy for such a long time I got tired of waiting for a phone that did not require bifocals.. so I bought a Note III and found it superior in every way except for build Quality... and it's still not to shabby. I'm looking at the sammy 12 inch tab, I like the idea of multi tasking.. Apple better start moving faster or it's only going to get worse for them

I must say being an Apple fan boy for such a long time I got tired of waiting for a phone that did not require bifocals.. so I bought a Note III and found it superior in every way except for build Quality... and it's still not to shabby. I'm looking at the sammy 12 inch tab, I like the idea of multi tasking.. Apple better start moving faster or it's only going to get worse for them

These are raw sales. These don't talk about where, what kind of tablets, for how much, etc.

A vast majority of "Android Tablets" are sold in Asian markets where they are used for pure consumption as a television. They aren't exactly being bought for "tablet use."

What matters is profitability of the tablets as well as number of profitable of customers.

How many of those Android tablets are being sold to people who will pay $3-$6 for multiple games and apps? Music? Movies? That number is what's relevant as that number will determine how many and what developers will create worthwhile apps for the ecosystem. I've seen so many Samsung Galaxy tab giveaways this year it's ridiculous.

I have an iPad purely for the quantity and quality of specific apps. I'd personally be fine getting an Android tablet that's 1/3 the price if I could get the same apps.

This trend of putting so much credit into pure sales number without taking any other market factors into place is just stupid.

Gartner can do this, because they don't advise investors, they advise corporate decision makers on what devices to support in the enterprise.

Show me the money...

Remember, this is the gartner that is so in tune with the tablet market place that they felt that Windows would be Number 2 by this year. They got burned by that one, and now are doubling down on Android. After what Pichai said last week about securing android, my guess is that it's the AV vendors that really want this number to be true, and want gartner to drive this so they can get a toe hold into the enterprise for mobile AV. Because if they have an android version, and if they have a [worthless] iOS version, they don't care if it's android or iOS, they're hoping the typical IT mantra of 'we are a [insert vendor] AV on all device standard shop.'

As aluded to by rf9, the ecosystem is the critical number. How many credit cards does Samsung, or HTC, or even Google have active in their mobility application/content accounts? I'm not saying that there are 20 devices on the shelf/drawer for every iOS device, but other than Amazon, I see no evidence that people actually use a non-Kindle Android Device even on a parity with an iPad.